From the Shelf

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Why do the most expensive things often have no logo at all? 🤔

In this episode of Fromtheshelf, I'm talking all about quiet luxury, the trend where people show status through fabric, fit and quality instead of big logos.

I get into why quiet luxury keeps coming back, the theory behind it (hello Veblen and Bourdieu 👋), and the question I can't stop thinking about: is quiet luxury actually anti-consumerist, or is it just harder to spot?

I also follow the look all the way down the luxury pyramid, from supreme luxury to masstige, and talk about what cheaper brands can copy, and what they just can't fake.

For more, including my luxury pyramid snack series, come find Fromtheshelf on TikTok, Instagram and Threads ✨

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This video explores advent calendars and their impact on consumers and fashion/ beauty industries today. While some see advent calendars as a traditional, appealing practice, others view them as clever marketing that doesn't deliver the promised value. I examine the advent calendar 'phenomenon' through social and consumer theories to clarify this debate, while unpacking the beauty calendar I got from Liberty London.

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Surrealism in Fashion Explained: An ode to Schiaparelli's Surrealist objects and designs through the prism of Freud, Breton and Lacan

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In this episode, I am not trying to convince you that everything you buy is a scam. I use the wellness economy as a social theory on why we buy and how it makes us feel ( obvs, including me) - healthism, the aestheticization of everyday life, postmodern consumption.

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K-pop idols have become luxury fashion's most powerful — and most extracted — marketing channel. When Dior signed Jisoo, Korean sales nearly doubled. This episode breaks down why, using Bourdieu's cultural capital, Nye's soft power, Horton and Wohl's parasocial interaction theory, Tajfel and Turner's social identity theory, fan economy theory, and Abidin's calibrated amateurism — to explain why fans buy the bag even when they know it's an ad, and why that knowledge doesn't stop them.

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This episode explains how second-hand clothes shifted from being associated with poverty to becoming a trendy, billion-dollar industry.

In this episode, a "trickle-up" theory explains how behaviors that begin as necessity at the bottom of the social ladder get adopted and eventually monetized at the top — comparing it to how denim workwear and hip-hop streetwear became luxury items.

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Fashion collaborations run on trickle-down theory: prestige flows from high fashion to mass retailers, who borrow cultural capital rather than create it. Zara isn't selling quality — it's selling proximity to luxury. From Madame Bovary to The Devil Wears Prada, fashion consumption has always been about identity and belonging, not need. Social media just sped that up. The gap between luxury and mass market looks smaller, but structurally, it never closes.